2.03.2011

Going with your example of me (on which I'm a noted expert), here's how I see it differently. I wasn't seeking wildness when I took to the road. I was inspired by the example of Jesus and his disciples and wondered if I could follow it almost literally today. Perhaps it did serve the need you describe, of clearing and purging. My point is that I wasn't trying to clear or purge. Just follow Jesus.

And the spiritual retreats for the homeless didn't come out of my imagination. I was at a place of longing and growing confusion, looking for a way to follow Jesus more closely than I felt I could at the Catholic Worker, and this newsletter about a CW retreat place for the homeless landed on our desk. Maybe Jesus didn't have a retreat place, but he did invite the poor to come out to him (sometimes on a hillside or by the sea), he lived as a peer among the poor, and he "preached good news to the poor," which is why we're doing what we're doing. It isn't new or my personal dream. I didn't want to do it until I was shown it at the right time.

Again, the point is that those things happened not because I was seeking them or even wanted them. What I was seeking was Jesus. That provided the focus and the clear, concrete goal: a person who is real and who assured me that he would provide a way for me to follow close to him if that was what I truly wanted.

Perhaps you're right that following Jesus closely will also satisfy any longing for wildness, break us out of suffocating domesticity, provide a life beyond our imagining. But seeking those things doesn't get us close to Jesus (or even get us what we're seeking). Seeking Jesus is what gets us Jesus.